Skip to main content

James Dickson Innes

Born in Wales at Llanelli, Innes was educated at Christ College Brecon, and the Carmarthen School of Art before winning a scholarship to the Slade (1905-08). It was here that he met Derwent Lees. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1908, he travelled in warmer climates. He painted in the South of France with John Fothergill, and afterwards in Spain (with Derwent Lees) and in Marseilles (with Augustus John). From 1911 to 1914 he painted in North Wales with Lees and John, making many studies of the mountain Arenig. Innes's early work was small in scale and largely watercolour. This began to change around 1908. Turning to oils, he continued to work on a small scale, but his colours became bright and luminous, applied in a notational method with rapid clipped brush marks indicating the features of the landscape. His career was cut short by premature death caused by his illness. Innes exhibited his first picture at the NEAC in 1907, and an exhibition of his watercolours was shown at the Chenil Gallery in 1910.

In our catalogue